Something Fishy Charters

Well here we are in mid September and it seems like we have not really had a summer at all,the weather has been our enemy the whole season,but i still live in hope of a fine autumn cod fishery.With luck the winter cod should start to show in the next three weeks,one thing that will help bring them inshore is the bad weather washing the food in like a tumble dryer.The size of the fish this year should be from 10/15lb with real stunners of 20lb on the cards.

If you are looking for a personal best cod this will be one of the best seasons to crack it.The best tides are already booked on Warrior but i have plenty of availability on Shaw Thing and a few week days left on Warrior.So if you want a cod of your life time rig up with a 20/30lb rod .medium size multiplyer loaded with braid,some 6/0 hooks,zips ,swievels and a box of squid and get on a charter boat in the next 3 months.

It wont just be cod around, congers will be feeding frantically fattening up for the winter months,channel whiting will be moving in from the channel,with the usual rays,dog,pout and a few spur dog putting in an appearance.The amount of large blonde ray and undulates this year has been apparant with blonds in excessof 20lb turning up in unexpected places giving unprepared anglers a run for their money.

Hope to see you at the stearn of one of our boats with a big smile and your rod bent double

As i have written this i have just heard the first Cod from Chichester has been caught a rather skinny 10lb der but is a start.

Amazingly,the big tope are still there to be caught,last week on two separate sessions we landed tope inexcess of 30lb.

The first day saw 7 fish 6 between 20/30lb and the second session 5 fish between 25/45 lb plus a nice undulate ray of around 14lb.All the fish came to fresh joey flapper`s and with two snap off`s and one 100lb trace bitten through there could of been better fish in the area that day.

As soon as the wind drops we will be back to have another go.Other areas fished well last week producing more fish but of not the same quality.Last months 53lb tope made boat fishing magazine i will submit the 45l ber see if we can get two pictures in consecutive months.

Well this weekend saw our first hectic tope / hound session.We were lucky to pick up around 20 mackerel first thing in the morning so decided to have a go at the tope. I set off to a smoothound mark to start with to wait for the tide to ease back before venturing further afield to well know tope mark.

The hounds were coming up steady when one of the anglers had his trace baited with squid bitten through.we quickly dropped down some mackerel fillets on wire traces and within minutes we had our first tope on the boat.It was a hectic session with 23 tope being landed the best one a magnificent 53lb er (see the picture on the second gallery page ) with several around 20/25 .The overall catch was 36 good fish the best hound was only around 10lb but mostly between 6/9lb. Looking forward to the return of the mackerel.

Sadly on the sunday the catch dropped to 18 fish and the same on monday,however the mackerel were not playing ball and there was not the quantity needed for putting down large baits.

The Tope season is about to start,there are some early reports of fish being landed to 30lb already and with an early run of mackerel there will be some excellent sport on the early larger fish.Last year our best tope was 5olb,but the was a new unclaimed record caught and released from the selsey area.

If you want a go now is the time to try and get afloat.You don`t want many anglers for this type of fishing as it will only result in tangles 4/5 anglers that are prepared to wait for that screening run.Good Luck

Well here we are at easter brilliant sun shine ,calm seas and good fishing,what more could a fisherman want .

As the title suggests the early part of the season was  hard work, initially we were looking for Blonde Rays on the off shore sand banks ,we only had one day when we blanked on the rays ,but the best day was only 6 compared to last years 10,although the average size was between 18/22lb.There was also the odd early smoothound,spurdog and late cod comming up so all in all for march it could of been alot worse.

The first week of April was very settled and started to warm up nicely,with black bream being caught be the commercial fishermen in their nets i thought it was time to spend the odd hour on a bream mark.Low and behold there were a few early male fish to be caught.Not many but one day produced 6 fish,these numbers have now increased to 3o ish fish each session mostly 1/2lb a very good sigh for the oncoming bream season.If you fancy a go at the early bream call me up as both Warrior and Shaw Thing are getting well booked as the word goes out the bream are about.You cant get more enjoyable fishing than Black bream on light gear in 30ft of water and light leads,they are not the easiest fish to catch but very rewarding.

The smoothounds have moved in a little closer and are coming to squid and crab baits,especially fresh peeler crab if you can get them.Before the big spring tides last week we were catching 10 or 12 between the bream sessions with the two best fish going 16.5lb and 20.5lb.The 20lb er came from a mark that has produced 20lb + fish at the same time of year for the past 4 years,( coincident`s or not i don`t think so)

Any way we will carry on with the bream fishing hoping to get that elusive 4lb fish ,at the same time waiting for the mackerel shoals to move inshore a little more so we can start the Tope season off earlier than usual.There are a lot of Gar fish being caught and following the baits so the mackerel cant be far behind.

Well hear we are in august the weather has turned predictably unsetteled as it allways does when the school holidays start.Our half day trips got off to a good start the 3rd week of july with average catches of mackerel,yellow tail,small bass,pout,dogs,smoothound and the odd ray at anchor,unfortuantly the smaller summer bream were not around in numbers.Last year the harbour mouth was full of bream around3/4 pound and they really made up the bag at the end of a 4hrs trip.Sadly the harbour has not fished as well as we had hoped the gilt head bream and trigger fish are not as plentiful,eels are rare and even the shoal bass dont seem to be bunching up like previous seasons,prehaps they are all late in coming.

  On a brighter note other species have done well this season and catches have been consistant we had a new boat record for numbers of bream caught in one day ,that was 121 with all femails and smaller fish going back.The average size that day was 11/4 to 2lb with the odd fish knocking on 3lb.Bullocks patch fished extreamly well for around 3/4 weeks this year ,it was good to see an old mark like bullocks come back to life again after some quite seasons.Personally i found the boulder bank quieter than usual and some of the inshore bream marks did not produce this season.

 The good old smoothounds were in on time and provided the usual excellent sport our best fish was 20.5lbs ,we have only have 3 over 20lb in the last 15years and they all came in april on the same mark on hermit crab,ther must be a message there somwhwere?The hounds seemed to dissaper a little earlier than usual but suddenly the are back with a vengance with catches of 20 falling to hard back crabs last week.Not monster fish but a good sample from 7to 14lb great fun on light tackle and shallow water.

Along with smoothound the tope run came.A little later than previous years but we had some good days with catches of  40 tope to 38lbs,this was an example of good fishing when everything goes well,we had the weather,the tide and the mackerel were plentiful so we could use the right baits,plus of course the anglers weren`t bad !

Bass have been dissapointing but it would seem the main run did not come untill july,this did not help me with most of my bass bookings were in june.As of yet i have not had any large fish or good numbers,but i am hoping that september may produce for us.

We have done better on summer cod and pollack average cod size was 8/12 lb and pollack up to 13lb.Sadly we did not find any cod on a two day trip to the brittle star banks this year i dont know if there were any good catches but i certainly did not hear of any.But conger and pollack kept the crew happy so it was not a wasted trip .The plaice have been showing although not as many as other years and the size is smaller, fish to 4.5lb have been landed.

So thats about all the news,Warrior our additional boat has performed as i hoped although i have had the usual teething problems with her and i have more work to do during the winter refit season, by next spring she should be just what i want.With 2 more weeks of august to go i am looking forward to the more settled weather of september and a change in species as we move towards the auterm, with our only fear that the weather will prevent us from venturing forth.Fingers crossed

After a long winter and a very cold spring fish are starting to arrive off the Sussex coast,this weekend i had desent catches of smoothound up to 13lb and a very nice late cod of 16.5lb which fell to a crab bait south east of the Nab tower.I tryed for black bream on both sat and sun but as yet they have not shown,i am confidant they will be here in the next week probably the next set of spring tides.The pattern of Chichester Harbour this year seems to be everything is about 3/4 weeks late due to the still cold water off the coast.The water temperature is 2/3 degrees below that of last year it does not sound much but its 25% lower.The fishing should go from strength to strength from now on with bream,mackerel,tope and bass all heading our way ,lets hope the weather is kind and we can get to sea regularly during the coming months.

Well the Warrior our new 38` Aqua Star has turned up from north Wales to Chichester Harbour,she is currently out of the water having a refit which i must say is dragging on a bit when all i want is to get out and start the fishing season.warrior is powered by two 300hp perkins sabre engines giving her a top speed of 22knt,however cruising speed will be more like 16knts,she will be fitted with a mix of Ray marine and Furuno electronics.I am fitting a fixed live bait tank for keeping sandeels alive over night for those bass trips and larger ice boxes for keeping the catch in tip top condition.

I am expecting to have the warrior ready by 2nd week of April if all goes well,She will fish parties of up to 10 comfortably and 12 on the half day trips the price will work out about £45/head and £25 on the half days depending on the size of group.She also has the convienance of a microwave oven,electric kettel,flush loo and heating for the winter.With the extra speed i am planing to travel further out on the smaller tides to try some of the less fished ground in the channel.If you fancy a trip drop me a line and i will sort out a date,any day soon we should see the first of the black bream,the larger males are always the first to show so dont delay give me call and try fishing from Chichester harbour.

After some months of deliberation we have decided to purchase another charter boat to give us the ability to cater for larger groups ,up to 24 people.We can also offer corporate hospitality, film work, bird watching or any other marine based activity.The new boat is the same make as Shaw thing II,she is a twin engined 38 foot Aqua star with a top speed of 22knots.We now have the ability to fish further out in the channel and can offer  wrecking,bassing,sharking and trips to the Brittle star banks.This increases the number of full time charter boats  based at  Itchenor in Chichester Harbour to four.Giveing us the potential to host small competitions etc .With the picturesque scenery, ample parking,good pub and fantastic selection of fishing to be had its definitely worth a visit.The other bonus is during the season chichester harbour has some great fishing within the estuary ,so if its two rough to go to sea there is no need to cancel ,we can offer you a half day in the harbour.Look forward to seeing our old customers and new this summer.regards adam

As i am busy preparing Shaw thing and Tia maria for the 2010 fishing season,i have time to reflect on last years fishing.We were off to a good start with fine weather in the spring allowing us to get out to the offshore sand banks to find the exciting Blonde Rays,each trip we managed to find good fish with the best one of the year weighing in at 28.5lbs followed by a 25lb er.There were more smaller fish on the ground last year so hope fully this was a sigh of good fishing to come,almost all the blondes caught by anglers these days go back which helps keep the stock healthy.

   The black bream showed early with our first fish arriving late march,the first of the bream are always the bigger male fish with their splendid electric blue colouring we did not catch any monsters but fish to 3lb were common with bags of up to ninety in a day.As the bream were coming on the smoothounds arrived inshore giving an alternative to the light sport fishing for bream,i thought it was a good year for the hounds, not so much in size although double figure fish were common but in the length of the season,they fished right through into late august with good fish still coming up through out september,our best fish of the year was just short of 20lb.

From early may we started hunting for tope my personal favorite fishing of the year,the last two seasons had not been as good as hoped for but now commercial fishing for tope has been banned under the shark coservation program i have been hopeing the tope numbers would return to the days of when  30 s and 40 s was a common days catch.There were some big fish hooked and landed in excess of 50lb but ourselves only managed fish to around 40lb with catches around 10 to 20 fish a session.One of the main problems was catching enough fresh mackerel for the tope session but with a few hermit or peeler crab on board the numbers could be made up with some smoothound.

The bass fishing stared off in june with a resonable supply of live sandeels although they were a little on the small side some times needing two on the hook,still small eels were better than no eels the best fish of the summer was 8lbs but the best bass of the year came up in october at 13.5lbs on a squid bait fished on the bottom .The majority of the bass were 3to 5lb with the odd 6/7lb one thrown in for good measure,numbers were`nt fantastic but most trips we got into double figures ,with pollack and rays to help the cate rate.

During high summer between the half day trips i do for the holiday makers we had some excellent plaice fishing with the best day boating 20 good fish to 5lb the smallest being 2lb that day, there would also be late bream,rays and good old wrasse to past the time of day.There was a good showing of trigger fish this year with alot coming out the harbour i think the best one was around 3lb caught by Dingly Dale along with some nice gilt head bream the harbour fished very well on the windy summer days when we could not get to the open sea with 12 plus species coming to the net.The inshore wrecks produced the usual congers up to 50lb which was a welcome change from macherel fishing and the odd summer cod and pollack showed . With the bonus of a reletively short steaming time some of the closer wrecks paid off for a bit of sport.